Inspection gone bad

We were in our third week of basic training at Fort Ord, Calif., when we stood for inspection with a chance for a weekend pass if we passed. I was standing at attention, my shoes and boots shined, my brass polished, my footlocker in perfect order, my bunk tight as a drum with my M-1 broken down in three pieces laying on top of it when Sgt. Castillo stopped and picked up the barrel of my weapon. Looking down the barrel, he did not see the reflection from his thumbnail, so he dropped a pencil down the barrel; the pencil emerged from the other end with a little spider riding on the tip where upon Castillo said, "Pvt. Bush, what have you got down there, the whole jungle?"

There was no pass that weekend.

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